Colloquia

One of the Department of Political Science's greatest strengths is its thriving intellectual community. We host several different colloquia focusing on a variety of topics: international relations, comparative politics, political theory, political methodology, public policy, political psychology, and power, equity, and diversity. In these workshops, graduate students and faculty from around the University can share and gain valuable feedback on works in progress. Furthermore, nationally and internationally renowned visiting scholars often present their work at these same workshops.

The American Politics Colloquium provides a venue for presentations of new and innovative work relating to political institutions, public policies, and mass political behavior in American politics. The colloquium hosts several top scholars in the field throughout the year to present their latest work. In addition, the colloquium serves as a forum for Minnesota graduate students to present their on-going work and engage in substantive and methodological conversations pertaining to their work and current issues in American politics.

During fall 2024, APC will meet on select Fridays from 12:00-1:30pm, in 1314 Social Sciences Building

Faculty Advisor: Kathryn Pearson

Student Organizers: Sarah Beck, Nicolas Campos, Taylor Hvidsten

The Comparative Politics Colloquium is a forum for conversations about innovative approaches to the study of comparative politics. Each semester, we select several top scholars from a range of disciplines to invite to speak. We also provide a valuable forum for graduate students from within the department to present their work.

During fall 2024, CPC will meet on select Mondays from 2:20-3:50pm, in 1314 Social Sciences Building.

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: Lisa Hilbink

Student Organizers: Larissa Beckman, Yinguang Zhao

Minnesota International Relations Colloquium (MIRC) is a series of informal seminars and presentations organized by University of Minnesota graduate students of International Relations. Since 1997, MIRC has served as an on-going forum for Minnesota students and faculty, and guests from other colleges and universities, to participate in academically informed and politically engaged conversations about theoretical and practical issues pertaining to international and global politics.

During fall 2024, MIRC will meet on select Mondays from 2:20-3:50pm, in 1314 Social Sciences Building.

Faculty Advisor: Mark Bell

Student Organizers: Nina Kaushikkar, Renata Rogrigues Marques

The goal of the Political Methodology Colloquium is to provide a venue for the discussion of methodologically informed political science research. Each semester we invite a number of top scholars and graduate students from the University of Minnesota and the outside scholarly community to present on research topics related to either (1) political and social science methodology or (2) the application of these methods to questions of interest to political science at large.

During fall 2024, MPMC will meet on select Fridays from 12:00-1:30pm, in 1314 Social Sciences Building.

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: James Hollyer

Student Organizers: Sarah Beck, Nicolas Campos, Taylor Hvidsten

The Power, Equity, and Diversity (PED) Colloquium is held in the spring semester of every other academic year. It is a curated forum for moderated conversations about power, equity, and diversity. Our objective is to workshop ideas on these topics as they relate to the study of politics, and thus to foster meaningful and cutting-edge research in political science and beyond. 

Each session promises to feature select University of Minnesota faculty from across subfields in the Department of Political Science in conversation with faculty from other social science and humanities disciplines on our campus and/or guests from other institutions. Sessions will be organized around a specific problem and a set of guiding questions. Possible topics for the upcoming spring 2024 colloquium include: approaches to comparison across the social science and humanities; policing and higher education; war, women, and memory; and the environment and the state.

PED will not be meeting during fall 2024.

Faculty Organizer: Arash Davari

Every year, graduate students in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota put together a schedule of academic sessions relevant to political theory, in the form of paper presentations, roundtable discussions, and reading groups. Presenters are graduate students, department faculty, faculty from other cognate departments at the university, other local college faculty (Carleton, Macalester, St. Olaf, etc.), and the occasional out-of-town guest. Past guests have included Charles Mills (CUNY Graduate Center), Linda Zerilli (UChicago), Ernesto Laclau (Northwestern), Amitai Etzioni (George Washington), Wendy Brown (UC Berkeley), Bonnie Honig (Brown), and Nicholas Xenos (UMass Amherst).

During fall 2024, PTC will be meeting on select Fridays from 1:30-3:00pm, in 1314 Social Sciences.

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: Anuja Bose

Student Organizers: Katelyn Shepardson, Allison Cohen

Spring 2025 Schedule

Date Event
2/7 PTC: Co-hosted with Department of History. Ajay Skaria: "Gaza and the Unsettling Equality of Academic Freedom."
2/10 MIRC: Dan LoPreto, Stanford University Press: Workshop on book publishing.
2/14 CPC, MIRC, & PTC: Charmaine Chua, University of California - Santa Barbara: "Fast Circulation, Slow Life: The Racial Fix of of Logistics."
2/17 CPC: Professor Lisa Hilbink, University of Minnesota and Professor Yasser Kureshi, University of Oxford: "Judicial Populism."
2/21 PTC: James Tully: "Political Philosophy as a Critical Activity," reading session.
2/24 MIRC: ISA Prep Session.
2/28 MPMC: Dr. Michael Beckstrand, LATIS: Information session about text as data.
3/3 CPC: Professor Anoop Sarbahi, University of Minnesota: "Fieldwork in Comparative Politics."
3/7 CPC, MIRC, & PTC: Sam Opondo, Vasar College.
3/21 APC & MPMC: MPSA Practice Talks Session 1: Caity Barrett, Nick Campos, and Grace Hertzog.
3/21 PTC: George Shulman, New York University: "Theorizing Beyond Impasse: Figurations of Aliveness in Theory, Politics, and Art."
3/24 MIRC: Roundtable on Historical International Relations with Ron Krebs, Helen Kinsella, Baruchi Malewich, Dongwook Kim, Ricardo Jasso Huezo.
3/28 APC/MPMC: MPSA Practice Talks Session 2: Sarah Beck, Taylor Hvidsten, and Brianna Kreft.
3/31 CPC: Felipe Ribeiro, Macalester College: "Criminal violence in Latin America."
4/4 PTC: Barbara Arneil, University of British Columbia: "Locke and Colonialism Revisited."
4/7 MIRC: Jelena Subotic, Georgia State University.
4/11 PTC: Andrew March, University of Massachusetts - Amherst: "Can a state have a right to exist?"
4/14 CPC: Prelim session with Teri Caraway and Kathleen Collins.
4/21 MIRC: Andy Noland, University of Minnesota
4/25 APC: Associate Professor of Law Nick Bednar, University of Minnesota.
5/2 APC: Professor Dan Myers, University of Minnesota: Sentiment in local and national news.
5/2 PTC: Sheharyar Imran, Macalester College: "Wastelanding and the Colonial Ecology of Racial Capitalism: An Indo-Atlantic Perspective."
5/5 MIRC: Prelim talk with Mark Bell.